OLDnFEEBLE, an area blogger, posted something recently that caught my attention, especially given recent heated discussion on the Forney discussion forum here on 20PM entitled ‘Plan to Build Toll road on Helms Trail from I20 to 80‘. From the article on ONF’s blog ‘A Seat At The Table?‘:

An article in today’s Dallas Morning News informs us of what would appear to be one of those really, really important meetings of regional representatives on vital transportation issues.

Drilling down into that article’s link to the North Central [Texas] Council of Government’s Regional Transportation Council membership appears to reveal that there is NO representative from Kaufman County or any city in Kaufman County on this council.

Research shows that while there are forty members on the Regional Transportation Council (RTC), including a county judge from Johnson County and a county commissioner from Ellis County, two counties that are of a similar size as Kaufman County, Kaufman County is completely unrepresented on the RTC.

Why should we care about a committee of 40 elected and appointed officials that meets monthly in Arlington to talk about roads that may not be built for 20 years? It’s simple – the RTC is the major planning group that guides the alignment of new roads in the Metroplex; they can align a toll-road along a small street like Helms Trail and knock out hundreds of homes, and on the other extreme, they can decide to completely bypass a city when routing major thoroughfares that have the potential to bring growth, development and increased tax revenue.

The North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) says the RTC is “the independent transportation policy body of the Metropolitan Planning Organization” and “is responsible for overseeing the metropolitan transportation planning process”. The Governor of Texas has stated that the RTC will be the decision-making group for all regional transportation policy for the Dalls-Fort Worth area.

Given that several major NCTCOG-directed projects, including the portion of Trans-Texas Corridor passing through the Metroplex area as well as the ‘Outer Loop’, Loop 9, will be passing through Forney, it’s vital that our area has representation in this group. According to the bylaws of the RTC, 25 seats are allocated to individual and cluster cities and the additional 15 seats are assigned to counties, TxDOT and various transportation authorities in the Metroplex.

The formula for assigning seats on the RTC seems to be population-based, which is leaving Forney and Kaufman County out in the cold, since while Forney is one of the top 10 fastest growing cities in the NCTCOG area, recent population estimates aren’t yet high enough to give Forney a seat on the Regional Transportation Council.

The population-based formula is frustrating, considering that much of the planning the RTC is engaging in concerns road projects that won’t be completed until 2020 or even later, at which point Forney’s population will most likely give it a seat on the RTC. However, Forney needs a voice in the regional transportation planning process now, to ensure that the residents of Forney in 2020 aren’t negatively impacted by the roads that are or aren’t being planned now. For instance, the new 2.2 million square foot regional shopping center that was recently announced has the potential to completely change the flow of traffic on the east side of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex as it draws shoppers from all over the region. Plans need to be made now to account for this growth in Forney and the increased traffic it will bring.

The NCTCOG should reconsider their population-based formula and account for projected population growth; if they will not do this, they should, at the very minimum, add a non-voting, advisory position to the Regional Transportation Council for both the City of Forney and Kaufman County. I encourage you to contact the NCTCOG as well as the City of Forney and Kaufman County and ask them to consider updating the Regional Transportation Council bylaws to give Forney and Kaufman County a voice in this very important group.

Discuss the Regional Transportation Council in this thread in the Forney discussion forum and make sure to check out the recent thread entitled ‘Plan to Build Toll road on Helms Trail from I20 to 80‘.